


Maggot Husbands

by Skrolan



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Eric is a duke, Hastur is sad, Light Angst, Ligur is dead, M/M, Maggot Husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-08-11 16:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20156755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skrolan/pseuds/Skrolan
Summary: A roleplay created by two minds, me and my buddys. We wrote/ are writing so much that we thought: Why not just throw it out there as a story? So here it just is. I'm working hard on correcting it as best I can.It all plays after the events of the series so SPOILER warnings there if you haven't yet finished it.After the war is over, quite some time after it actually, Hastur is lost in sorrow over the loss of Ligur, his companion, and secret love, though he would never even admit to even trusting him. But now that Ligur is dead, hell needs a new replacement for the place of duke; and that is Eric. A lowlife demon which makes it even worse on Hastur, that Ligur is replaced.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Before anyone thinks Eric is an OC: 
> 
> You remember that disposable demon, also named Demon Nr. 3 somwhere on the side of Amazon Prime? Yeah? Apparently it's made canon by Neil that his name is Eric. I read it somewhere, I hope that's true.
> 
> Even if not? Disposable demon's name is Eric now

Mere days had passed after Armageddon't took place and that traitor, Crowley, had gotten his 'punishment'. There had been a lot of meetings and back and forth's between hell's and heaven's headquarters, but it all started getting back to how it had been. More or less, it went back to normal.

Hell had been down one duke for a long while since Beelzebub had had all their hands full with something else. Well, it HAD been that way. Now that all important business was out of the way, the lord of the flies had reported what had happened to their boss, and he had chosen a demon as a replacement. 

That 'lucky' demon had too much of an excited attitude and quite the unprofessional smile as he bounced around hell to search for the other duke, to deliver the same news he had delivered to Beelzebub and Dagon before. With a bright smile he knocked on the door leading to Hastur's personal quarters to see if he was there.

"What." 

Hastur was sitting on a grimy bed without sheets, mattress skeevy with something yellow and the walls sticky and rotten from the blown waterpipes. He stared in front of himself into nothingness, frog squirmy on his unmoving body and croaking in distress.

"There is a thing you should know. It is concerning work, so just hear me out on this." 

The demon rocked back and forth on his heels as he listened for any noise coming from the inside of the room that indicated, that the other demon was willing to listen to him.

The duke only grunted as an answer. He didn't want to speak if he didn't need to. Especially, now that he listened closely, he knew that voice. And it was annoying. 

Overexcited, high-pitched, stupid jokes, stupid face. Avocado, yeah right. If that wasn't anything important, he'd be sure to not only burn and discorporate him, but torture that stupid antennas, or whatever that was, off his head.

Not getting much of a reaction he thought the best idea to get the message across would be, to throw the information at him. In retrospect, it sounded like a much better idea to not get Hastur angry. He had felt it himself what the other demon would do, if you'd get him angry. 

"You see, since that... incident with duke Ligur, our lord has chosen someone else to take is place and... well... that would be me, Eric!"

The demon stopped his rocking and bit his lip but still felt just as excited saying it out loud as when it got announced to him.

When the name of the deceased demon fell, Hastur perched up. 

"You're...what-?" 

He didn't hear right, he was sure of it. Clenching his teeth he subconsciously reached up to his toad, grabbing one foot and pressing it, which made the animal squeak a bit pityfully.

"I, um, I'm his replacement, so to say, taking up his role. Someone has to do it." 

Eric took a step away from the door as if to brace himself to be met with a whole lot of pain. He did his best to keep that happy attitude, but it started slipping when he heard the tiny squeaks of pain. 

"I'm guessing you are busy now. Maybe I should come by later again o-or we'll see each other when lord Beelzebub calls for us!"

Before Eric could even TRY to get away, the door was slammed open and Hastur glared him down.

"A fucking replacement?" 

He hadn't thought of that. There had only been one or two replacements he had witnessed in his time down, and actually, it had never been because someone had died. Only something like with Pestilence and Pollution. 

"And you're supposed to be that?" 

His tone sounded almost amused.

It took all his willpower to not jump back and stay put as the door flung open. He shouldn't jump when someone of the, now, same rank as himself simply opened a door. 

"Yes. So I was told." 

The demon folded his arms behind his back, clenching and unclenching his fists in an attempt to stay calm.

The black eyes mustered him for a while before they rested on his face and narrowed. 

"Where is Beelzebub?"

"I believe they are wandering around here somewhere? I'm not too sure-", Eric answered truthfully and stepped aside. 

"My job here is done. See you soon." 

With that he walked off to leave Hastur alone, happy he could brush him off onto his superior.

Too laid back. Way too laid back. He didn't believe it, what that demon had said. Demon's didn't trust each other anyway, but he still didn't feel good about this. 

When his toad snatched something out of the air Hastur's hand shot up to save the fly from being eaten and digested. 

"I know you can hear me. Where the fuck are you?"

"I'm doing my bezzt to get thezze lazzy fuckzz in the lower quarterzz of hell to work. A bit of pressure doezz wonderzz. Why? You need something?", the fly buzzed back at him to deliver their lord's reply.

"What in satan's name was that shit with that demon kid? Did I miss April Fool's again?" 

The toad squirmed uncomfortably from hunger, which didn't stop Hastur from squishing that fly until he was close to squashing it.

"Not my choizze. Azzk Satan himzzelf what he izz doing. I'm following orderzz, izz all", came as an answer, quickly followed by: "We'll see what he can do. If he'zz azz uslezzzz azz he prezzentzz himself azz, he'll be gone again in no time, or you make him quit yourzzelf. Maybe the next replacement would be more to your liking."

"But why IS there a replacement? And why...him-?" 

Hastur sounded more disgusted than anything else. The fly was buzzing in distress at the torture he made it go through, plucking out one wing subconsciously. 

"It went fine without him. It makes no sense."

"There alwayzz hazz to be a replacement, like it or not. If anything were to happen to either Dagon, you or me, we'd be replaced too. That'zz how it is." 

The fly squirmed around with all it's strength to escape the tight grip on it. 

"See it azz something pozzitive. You can dump your work on him. He seemzz stupid enough to do it."

"Yeah." 

One word was enough to describe what this meant to him. A lot, while he acted like it didn't mean anything. Yes, of course they would be replaced. It made sense. But he didn't want it. Ligur had been the only reliable 'workpartner' in all of hell. He had done his job, he had not complained and been mostly quiet too. Until that...that Traitor...that maniac, had killed him. 

The other wing was plucked out, and before the fly could be snatched by the lingering toad tongue, Hastur squashed it, not bothering to give more of an actual response. It was supposed to be his free day, but he wouldn't be able to concentrate anyway. 

Grinding his teeth he scratched the scabbed skin of his face and growled, toad ribbiting annoyed. That boy wasn't going to be a duke for long. He had already killed three of him. He had enough time, and interest, to kill him again. Though it would get harder if he really was a duke now.

Beelzebub didn't react much to how he killed one of their poor little flies, to go on with tormenting the ones that didn't do their job well enough. They didn't care much about that sort of business. If things would go smoothly for all of them, they could manage having such a lowlife taking a spot next to them. 

Said lowlife didn't do much, only patrolled the corridors and used his newfound power to terrorize some others. Even if he acted like a scared boy, he was still a demon and had to make that known to everyone around double as much as before. 

Unfortunately, that was leaving a clear trail to where he had been already, since demons that didn't believe it one bit, started making fun of the way Eric tried to act like the boss all of a sudden.

Hastur took one of those aside and pinned him to the wall, questioning with few enough words that he wouldn't have a raging fit. It really wasn't hard to find Eric. He looked as 'glamorous' as ever, walking through the halls like some kind of queen. 

He was standing in a corner, leaning over a freaked out, small little demon who was probably such a lowlife, that they could be happy to even be able to speak. He didn't want to, but Hastur put one hand on Eric's shoulder, watching him carefully.

Not being prepared for the hand that had been placed on his shoulder, the demon flinched. In quarters of demons that had only given him weird glances or ignored him all together, he wasn't prepared. 

When he whipped his head around he was even less prepared to see Hastur standing behind him. The little demon he had been tormenting got pushed aside so he could continue dealing with them later. 

"Lord Hastur! Meeting each other so soon again, eh? Is there anything you need?"

He had nearly said: 'for you to shut your fucking trap', but just so caught himself before it. 

"We're going up." 

He pointed to the ceiling with a stoic face, taking the demon he had been tormenting by the collar, sending hellfire through them. With a terrified scream their body burnt and they vanished, probably back to the pit of souls. If they let themselves be tormented by a lowlife like this, they weren't worth anything more.

"Up? You mean earth?" 

Having seen someone being burnt to get them to discorporate made him shudder. He could feel for that, it happened to him so many times already that he could tell someone who cared, the exact amount of time it took for the pain to stop. Feeling uneasy, Eric not even dared to ask the purpose for Hastur needing him. He doubted that the more powerful demon would have listened to him not wanting to go anyways.

"Up", Hastur only repeated, wiping his hand on his shirt in disgust before he let go of the other demon and turned around, snapping to get his wig back. The messy white one that looked a little like a mop. 

The toad already croaked in complaint, but he only shoved the wig on there messily and miracled his coat on. He was gonna find out if this guy had even the slightest qualification for being a duke, and if he could even try to be Ligur's replacement. He already wanted to puke at the comparison and swallowed hard to keep it down.

Without questioning him further, Eric let himself be led. It didn't sit right with him to be clueless and dragged along to a place he didn't get more information on other than 'up'. Chewing on his lip, he shot the pile of dust one last side glace before nervously following the simple order.

The duke stayed quiet through all of the port upstairs. They were spit out in a subway in germany. He had wanted to go anywhere but america or England. Bad memories there. 

"Show me." 

He walked out of the subway with the ‘new duke' following him and made a wide handgesture around.

"Show you what? I don't think I get what you want from me-" 

The demon had been doing his best to make out every little detail of how everything looked like around him, anything to not address Hastur. Shyly he allowed himself to focus on the one speaking to him, pulling on a loose thread on his clothes.

"What do you think? You're a duke now." 

The longer this went on, the more displeased Hastur looked. This brat could have been an angel for all he cared. Because as a demon, he didn't acknowledge him. 

"If you now are 'Ligur', show me some of his powers." 

He snapped and watched the maggots crawl underneath the stones of the sidewalk, giving an odd sideglance to someone walking by before he dropped some of his maggots onto him with a demonic miracle and a gust of wind, laughing high pitched, and a little more pleased, as he saw that guy freaking out, frantically tearing at his clothes and running as if that would help anything.

With a forced laugh, that died down soon after him starting to fake it, Eric blankly watched the scene unfold. The only one he needed to prove something to was Satan and not this guy, who took great pleasure in sending him back to hell the same way. It probably was more clever to play along for now though. 

"I don't have his powers. I am not him and I know I won't get close to it any time soon either." 

With a little handmotion he made someone drive their bike into a group of young women, who all had to jump out of the way and tumbled onto the street to nearly get run over. 

"But! I will take his role up and be even better than him ...or something like that- " 

Hopefully a minor inconvenience got it across. It felt like the right thing to do, but what even was the right thing anymore?

Inside Hastur was boiling. That was all? A little bit of letting someone run into a group of women with a bike?? And he was to be called a duke now? He didn't know if he should feel more ashamed for that guy being a duke by his side, or that he was a duke in spot of Ligur. 

Anyway, it offended him and he clenched his fists before snapping into the direction of an old man across the street. 

"No duke of hell does stuff half-assed like that." 

He walked closer to Eric and stared him down, though he was pretty much the same height as he was. 

"This guy is wearing false teeth. I put maggots between the space of his dentals and the gum that will fester and infect him. He will die of it soon because he will not notice, since he forgets to take out his teeth, even for sleep. He will die of a horrible sickness and curse the heavens and soon he'll be down with us." 

This was ridiculous.

Putting his hands up in defence when Hastur came closer, Eric hesitated to turn his head to where he was pointing. The task was simply, just a quick wave of his hand but he didn't do it. Instead of following the order he turned back to him. 

"Why do you do this?", he questioned him. 

" Why are you dragging me up here to prove to you, that I am worthy of this position? We aren't supposed to trust each other, but you sure as hell have a huge problem with me."

"Because you aren't quite...how did you say it? The green from the eggplant?" 

Hastur chuckled weirdly; a high pitched snicker that was half caught in his throat and half bubbled up. But almost immediately as it had started, the laughter died down and he gave him a disapproving look. 

"You're about the same rank as that traitor was. We don't trust each other, but some things are just impertinence."

"I am nothing like Crowley! Unlike him, I am taking my job seriously!" 

Eric looked displeased at the comparison. He knew what had happened involving Crowley, everyone knew about it, and it was quite offending to be put on the same level as someone, who had gone against all of hell's orders in order to be with an angel. Shuddering at the thought he pulled a face. 

"If you only want me to waste my time here, then I'd rather leave."

"You're not much less of a lowlife", the duke grumbled and fumbled with his coat until he found a half crumbled package of cigarettes, only Lucifer knew how old those were, putting one in his mouth and lighting it with hellfire spurting from one finger. 

"You're a 'duke' now. You wouldn't even have needed to come with me. And now you're asking me if you can leave?" 

He was nearly amused by it, as much as it made him aggressive. If Ligur had been here he would have made sure to calm him, agree on the subject and wreck some havoc. But this...this sad excuse of a demon? Only Crowley was more of a disgrace.

"Well, that means I can leave then", Eric grumbled as he turned around to leave and go back to hell to continue his work down there. 

A pure waste of time to have gone here and, even if he had spend his whole life obeying others, he had better things to be doing, maybe even lord Beelzebub had anything he could do for them. Everything was better than trying to prove shit to someone, who he didn't need to prove anything to.

While the duke stayed up to watch the night sky, he liked dirt but he preferred the air to be less...mephitic, Dagon was downstairs running through the hallways with a pile of documents in her hand to get to Beelzebub.

"Lord Beelzebub!" 

She was walking fast, not yet running, and shoved demons aside in the crowded subway of hell.

"Lord Beelzebub! There is something I need to talk with you about! Where in satan's name are you!" 

She swatted the flies from her face that buzzed busily and nearly flew up her nose once or twice.

"What? More paperwork to sign? Just drop it on my dezzk, I'll take care of it later", Beelzebub grumbled as they had their fun punching the shit out of the printer.

"Not sign, no", Dagon sighed and snapped at a demon to get out of her way. "It's about some work we need to think about. Now where in the hell are you?"

The demon lord stopped their task of showing that stupid machine who is boss, and let their flies guide them to Dagon. 

"Work, great. What izz it exactly? Can't be that important."

“Oh it is.“

Without much off another explanation Dagon hissed at the pesky flies and showed them a sharp-toothed grimace. That's why she didn't like talking to Beelzebub over their flies. Hastur could just eat the excess flies swarming him, but the lord of the dephts, and mockingly declared files, would rather lick the grime and sludge covered walls, than eat a swarm of flies coming from the lord of hell. 

When she arrived at the printers, which Beelzebub still spitefully called copying machines, there wasn't anything that sparked more hate in them than these century old printers, she gave a disapproving look to the loud clattering of those ancient machines and set the cocuments onto one of them. 

"I've talked to Lucifer, great Satan, king of hell. He said that we should continue our work towards a new antichrist, starting with changing the mind of a certain holy individual. He said we need to set an example for hell and heaven and mark it as the new beginning for the end of the world." 

She sighed and had the urge to deliberately bite her tongue at the stupid idea this was. 

"He's having a hand in the pope visiting england soon, and now we're supposed to rub some unholiness into him."

The lord turned their head and made a face that clearly showed how unwilling they were to go anywhere near someone as holy as that. 

"He wantzz uzz to go where now? No way am I going to rizzk it to tempt the pope! Would be an accomplishment, but fuck that. I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to go through with it." 

They walked around her so they could look at the stack of papers she carried around. 

"You can gladly take that job, but I know that you are aware of the shit you'd have to do for it, and the consequenzzezz."

"Don't even think about shoving me on the job", she hissed and slammed her fist on the printer, which gave off a creaky groan and coughed out a cloud of dust and ink. 

"I have enough to do down here. I have a mountain of documents and demons to get back under control. And I swear by Satan, I won't risk my life and end up like that fool Ligur. I've had enough of holy water for the next centuries." 

"Eh, wazz worth a shot." 

Beelzebub waved their hand around to rid their right-hand's hand of the dust. Obviously, Dagon didn't want to do that shitty job either. No one would be at their position and be so stupid. 

Straightening up a little again she disapprovingly looked at her dust covered palm from only touching the printer once and frowned. 

"We need someone to do it. And we can't have a completely low caste do it. It would end in a disaster."

"We can zzend the new dumbazzzz, alwayzz had been following orderzz no matter what. He'd do it without a doubt." 

To underline exactly how stupid that idiot was, Beelzebub called for him and not long after that heard hurried steps echoing through the halls. 

"You called, lord Beelzebub?", the fidgety demon asked, acting nervous like he had messed something up. 

"Zzo I did. Dagon hazz a job for you. We think you are the right one to do it."

The lord of the files gave Eric a disapproving look and grimaced before leaning over to Beelzebub to whisper in their ear. 

"I don't think this is a good idea. He's too dumb to be able to even seduce a priest. How should he seduce the fucking pope? He's got no experience. I don't approve."

Beelzebub raised a brow at her and whispered back: 

"Would you like to do it? I'm not doubting your abilitiezz in seduction but honestly... The boy lookzz more like a walking 'rape me' sign than you do. The pope likezz hizz partnerzz young and cluelezzzz, he wazz born for thizz job."

Dagon sighed and shook her head. 

"No matter. I'm pushing Hastur with him. If he is in Ligur's place now anyway, i'm having Hastur watch over him. I wouldn't feel good otherwise." 

Clearing her throat she gave Eric an important seeming look and straightened up. 

"Since you're a duke now", she spat out the duke. "Lucifer themselves got a mission for you for which we will team you up with Hastur."

"I am not sure if that is a good idea. From my past experiences with duke Hastur, we'd only be getting in each others ways." 

Eric hated working with him just the same amount as Hastur did, so he told himself. In reality it could be deemed impossible of how much Hastur wanted him gone, but how should he know? 

At the backtalk, Beelzebub gritted their teeth and held up their hand when they felt like he'd continue complaining. 

"Go alone. If you fail, you'd be punished for it. So go and get uzz good resultzz." 

At that the young demon ran off to get on with his task. Before Dagon could complain about their actions they chimed in with a: "Contact Hazztur to observe him. Make the kid believe he could get out of your order, but have him under sourveilanzzze at all timezz."

The other lord nodded and got out an old fashioned nokia, the only phone she could actually handle, and called the duke. 

"Hello, Hastur." 

The duke grumbled, turning to the electronics shop he had walked past. 

"I've got a job for you. Eric will be up on earth in just a bit, trying to seduce the pope to drag him to our side. It's a job from Lucifer personally." 

Hastur grimaced uncomfortably and spat out, but he didn't say anything against it. If it was decided, it was decided. 

"I'll send you the coordinates. Your job is to watch over him, and, if he fucks up, to fix his mistakes. We don't trust him, Hastur. Keep a close eye." 

With that Dagon flickered off the screen of the displayed tv and coordinates flickered up in white Comic Sans, blinking on the black screen. The duke cursed, and, with a quick punch, broke the window, glass splintering everywhere and into his hand where gooey, black blood pooled out. The alarm sirens of the shop went wild while he walked away, rubbing his injured hand.

Once everything seemed to have been discussed, and the work had been pushed off of the two lords, Beelzebub returned to their previous task. They had nothing to do unless problems would arise.

Well, there wasn't going to be a problem for Eric when it came to tempting anyone into getting down and dirty with him, there was going to be the problem for if he'd be able to stop himself. 

It really hadn't been hard to seduce some old man into pinning him down and fucking the living hell out of him and he'd take his time, maybe a few days, in which he would keep up the temptation to make sure he'd be unholy enough that god wouldn't want him in heaven anymore, once he was done here. 

The slight burn from how blessed this place was didn't make him think about stopping, if anything it edged him on. All for his job, of course.

The duke had watched the whole thing from afar through maggots, squirming in the corners. He had had to convince earth maggots to sneak in there, couldn't use his own in a holy building in the presence of one of the holiest beings on earth. Or at least, one who was drenched in blessings like that. 

He had watched Eric sneak into the room, turn the pope's head with a bit of seduction and miracling to ignore that fact and was, by now, riding him with so much vigour that it looked, like he had more fun with this, than he should have since his thighs were burnt and his hole shouldn't be much better.

Hastur flinched when he imagined the pain and had to turn away from it, not like he had wanted to see that ancient guy clad in blessings ride that lowlife. He really didn't. Especially not the hours this already went on for. Eric should have become a succubus, he deemed. 

Sighing he scratched underneath the wig and shooed the maggots away a bit so he could lean over the blockade stating that there was street work ahead. Whyever that kid had gotten such a job, he didn't know, and probably didn't want to. If he was lucky, Eric died during that. 

The only thing bothering him was, for starters, the bad memories involving the traitor in england, and that he had to babysit the 'new duke'. It was a bother, nothing more. 

His hand moved down to scratch the warts on his cheek subconsciously until he flinched when they bled. Sucking the blood from his fingernails he turned and gave the maggots another glance, snitching when they didn't report anything new. Just a change in position, which he hadn't wanted to know. 

When he heard a cat snapping at something, or someone, he turned his head. He had only wanted to silence that stupid beast, but when he saw something, his mouth opened and he looked aside before he looked back to the spot. There was no one there. Of course there wasn't. Closing his mouth he rubbed his temples before he removed the wig to let his toad have some fresh air and sighed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER at the beginning:
> 
> You will see the writing style from now on differ from the previous due to my friend stopping his contribution to this. He isn't as into Good Omens as I still am, which is why I will continue in his stead. So expect a few changes in character and writing style, though I will try to portray the characters as he has as best I can

If you'd go around London and ask a bunch of people if they had seen a guy with worn out, dark clothes, with unusual coloured eyes staring at you too long for it to be deemed comfortable, or have seen him in a large group of people, a lot of people would say 'yes'. 

The man in question must have been homeless, judging by how he walked around, and had spend long periods of times lurking around crowded places. Today wasn't different, the same man stood on the opposite side of a street to a small café and had been staring at a group of old women for quite some time. 

The women had noticed obviously, but pretended they hadn't, chatting about their husbands and grandkids and so on. Suddenly one of the women frantically started coughing out of nowhere, but stopped after not too long again, the man gone as soon as the feeling of having been watched left her. 

It was quite strange, wherever that man came up, something happened. Nothing bad, just minor inconveniences, but there was ALWAYS something out of place. That couldn't be related though, could it? 

That didn't matter because the man was never there for a long time. Whenever he did something, he was gone right afterwards. For now, the guy stalked after a group of young girls, it looked like. Only god knew what he planned on doing with them. 

What didn't look quite right about that situation, was that he wasn't staring at any of the girls, just coincidentally walked wherever they went, eyes casted to the ground as he appeared to be deep in thought.

Hastur, who had been focused on smoking, giving occasional glances to the maggots, turned to take a walk. He wondered if Eric was even remembering this was supposed to be an evil deed. He had been so bored, he had actually counted the times that -well. 

The duke shuddered at the thought of it and shook his head. Babysitting wasn't quite his strong suit. So he took a walk under the beautiful, late afternoon sky, wig back on his head, of course, he wasn't unprofessional and forgot that. 

The maggots had huddled together in his hand and now squirmed in the pocket of his coat with the package of cigarettes, one or two of them having found their way into his toad's stomach. The streets were boring, as always. A bunch of tourists in front of him, a flock of giggly girls on the other side, and a homeless dude. 

Looked like he was following them, if he was correct, to rape them. That would be a nice asset to hell. Rape and murder of a bunch of girls. They needed good, new assets down in hell. Not non-succubus' like Eric. 

He spat out at the thought and turned to look after them, watching them go along. But something didn't sit right with him, didn't feel good in the big picture. 

The homeless wasn't behind the girls anymore but instead looked blankly into a street. Drug abuse? That would also be nice. Though they had a lot of those down there already. 

When the guy turned to look around Hastur's heart sunk. The guy's eyes glistened, fiery and bright, like a rising sun. 

Without him even really knowing why, his feet moved on his own into the direction of that man. It just bugged him, it didn't sit right. But when he stood at the alley, the man wasn't there. Hastur didn't know his way around Soho, why would he, so he just snitched and threw his fist at the brick wall in frustration. 

This was stupid, he was a demon, he shouldn't be feeling emotions like...like these. Stupid, absolutely and utterly stupid. His mind was rotting, he felt, rotting and clinging to that demon and making him see and feel and wish things. 

He hit the wall again, blood spurting and splattering onto the wall since his hand had already been bleeding anyway. The duke hissed as the glass splinters were pushed further inside the flesh of his body. Though maybe the pain was just what he needed to fix his thoughts. 

Well, he at least fixed up his coat and pulled the last splinters out of his hand before he wiped it at his trousers, leaving deep, black stains. To get back on the job now...it had been a bad idea to roam. So he quickly walked back near the place where the pope resided in, and was fucking the living hell out of a demon, probably. If Eric still was a demon after this, and not had been exorcised. 

The building was full of security guards, which wasn't a problem, but if he didn't need to go up yet, he wouldn't. So instead he finally enjoyed smoking and rested his head against a lamppost, pulling out the maggots and watching them squirm as they reported to him on the situation.

Since the printer had stopped being entertaining after it having been smashed to pieces and fixing it to continue to punch the shit out of, and it didn't sound that appealing anymore then, Beelzebub laid spread out on their throne and counted the flies surrounding them. 

You'd think ruling that shit show down below would be a whole lot of work, it was, but the lord couldn't care less if it wasn't too important. Fishing out a phone from their pocket they thought it might be a good idea to at least pretend to look like they were working and check if that little fuck up had been killed, or put into a whole lot of pain. 

Dialing up to connect with the duke they slid further down their throne, head laying in the armrest and their legs hanging over the backrest and other armrest. 

"Hazztur, any newzz so far on how Eric izz doing hizz job? Izz he getting tortured to death over there? Can I file in the requezzt for a replacement?"

This time the conmection came through the tied up headphones somewhere deep in Hastur's pockets, but to his luck it was loud enough that he could find them and hear what was said. 

"Not yet. Though I don't know if you can call that torture." 

He frowned and squashed a maggot before he turned to look at another. 

"They're spooning right now, and Eric's screaming, I think. He looks pretty roughed up, seems to hurt, doesn't look like it does much for him." 

His face scrunched up as he saw the nasty burns of blessings that the pope miraculously didn't seem to notice.

They grimaced at the image in their head and shook it out of there quickly again. Fucking worked well at tempting apparently, who knew one of earth's most 'holy' residence would fall for it that fast though. 

"Zzpooning doezzn't sound like a terrible thing to me. Amp it up a bit, would you? I didn't zzend him there to enjoy himzzelf with that fuck, pain he muzzt be in azzide."

"Amp it up? I'm not going to join in there! My name is not Crowley!" 

He just assumed the traitor would have joined in; he just looked the part -and acted it. It was disgusting, to say the least. What the hell was he. A succubus? A hostess? A damn duke is what he was, not a girl on a playboy cover.

"Your dezzision to shorten the time you have to watch them. Some action once in a while ain't too bad but whatever." 

Beelzebub refrained from pressing on about it. If the job would get done now or later didn't matter at all, important was that it would be a success. 

"Give Dagon or me a report onzze something happenzz that could be interezzting to uzz."

"Yeah, i'll figure out something." 

Beelzebub had hung up before he could say anything else. Cursing that damned 'duke' he kicked a pebble and squashed the rest of the maggots that had been wriggling around in his palm in fear.

Now to the harder part. How should he stir this up a little? He didn't want to go in there, too many blessings. But if he had to, he had to. Now just not to make a mistake and make a show out of it. Religious people always got hooked on a bit of a show. 

He clad himself in shadows and threw away that rancid wig before he stalked to the house and checked it. Spreading his maggots around a little he checked where the guards were before he spread a bit of a disease and a wave of maggots into the rooms that he would have to pass through.

It was done before they even had a chance to call the alarm. Chuckling quietly Hastur clenched his injured fist and walked inside, head hung low as if that would protect him from any heavenly interference. 

Taking a deep breath before he walked into the room that was noisy with Eric's screams and the moans of that old sucker, he dispersed the shadows a little, made for a bit of cold air and spit out a wave of maggots before he walked inside, through the door so to say, without opening it.

Inside the room Eric laid on the bed with his ass raised up and his legs spread, the pope having a strong grip on him to pull him back to meet his thrusts. The demon bit the sheets, using them as a help to keep down the groans of pain and pleasure. 

He hadn't been there for too long, and his body felt absolutely wrecked by the blessings he hot exposed to. Catching a faint movement out of the corner of his eyes, the new duke pushed himself up on his hands and knees, mind too scattered for him to get what was happening.

Hastur snitched silently when none of the two realized he was there, and let a cold wave of air wash down the old man's back so he shivered and turned around. 

"Hello, 'holy' being."

He spat the holy out as best he could, giving him and Eric a nasty smile, though he wanted to vomit. 

Eric's mind cleared up within a matter of seconds at the sound of the dukes voice and blinked rapidly to get his eyes to focus on the other demon. 

"Hastur! What are you doing here?!" 

This couldn't be good if he showed up here to talk to him, or do whatever it was he was here for. Luckily the man got the message to stop his movement as well, staring confused at the demon but kept a strong grip on the other demon's hips.

It was infuriating how that old guy only had eyes for Eric still, though Hastur already had made all his preparations to have him shaking in his boots, which he wasn‘t wearing. This was going to get harder. 

Ignoring the new duke he stepped in closer, eyeing where they were stuck together before he gave a disapproving look and looked back into the pope's eyes. 

"Do you know why i'm here?" 

It wasn't directed at the new duke, but he feared he would answer. That man didn't seem like he was well enough in his mind, especially right now, that he would actually realize anything much.

Just as suspected Eric frantically started asking questions and rambled on about being insecure if he did something wrong, but it was all just background noise at this point, rambling to himself to keep him from losing it. 

When the man had the demon directly staring at him, staring into his soul it seemed, he felt the need to speak up. 

"I'm afraid I don't. I should have known there would be more people to come by, but why have you come here? Are you seeking the same as the boy here?" 

Really, why should he know for what reason that strange man just appeared in that room? The guy beneath him was, as far as he knew, a poor soul that needed to have 'the living hell fucked out of him', by his own claims. But that newcomer…? He had no idea.

Hastur did his best to give no apparent reaction to that question. This wasn't good old-fashioned hell tempting, this was new stuff he didn't care about, didn't WANT to be a part of, and he was quite honestly overwhelmed by what he should do. 

"None of that, dear 'sir'." 

Hastur walked to the side of the bed and, with a miracle pulled Eric off of his excellency without touching him. He really didn't wish to. With another gust of wind Eric was off the bed and at his feet. 

"I am here to inform you, that you have lost." 

Not once did he blink as he stared the man down, walking away from the mess that called himself a duke to walk to the other side of the bed, more stalking than actually walking it seemed. 

"For every 'holy' being on earth, there is a trial. To succumb, or not to succumb to hell's temptations. And I am delighted to tell you, you have lost." 

Only now did he give Eric a look and he pointed for him to come. 

"Over here, 'boy'." 

The horrid smile he gave him was in no way telling of anything good.

This wasn't supposed to feel like Eric‘s punishment, but somehow it did, and it was unnerving to say the least. Not feeling too sure about it he quickly miracled his clothes back on before carefully making his way to him. He did not dare to speak, not when he had to concentrate on not whimpering at the pain of his burnt skin rubbing up against the fabric. 

Hell's temptations? He had lost? It sounded too surreal to be true. These people must be trying to find a way to blackmail him! He wouldn't believe any of it until he had proof that he had been tempted by a demon. The guy didn't look much like the demons he had heard of. 

"A trial? What is going on? Is this a joke? If so, by god, it's not a good one. I demand answers right now!"

Hastur was having a fucking toad on his head, had not moved the door when entering, had miracolously pulled Eric off the bed without touching him, Eric had miracolously worn clothes again and whenever he shifted, a cold gust came flying through the room without there being an open window or air conditiong. 

How in the hell was this man, the holiest being on earth, such an idiotic dunce?! 

Sighing Hastur rubbed his temples and and kicked Eric in the side at the annoying whimpers he gave off, though he was seemingly trying to hold back. Pulling one sleeve up Hastur let a wave of maggots crawl from his fingers, let insects bulk violently against his clothes and whirled a little gust of wind around him while he showed off his injured hand, black blood dripping from it like ooze.

"Is that enough", he asked through pressed teeth, an annoyed smile on his face as the maggots crawled over the wooden floor to nibble on the old man's toes and fester between them, a cold breeze making him shiver. 

"Or does your 'excellency' need another one?“ 

From one of his fingers a glint of fire sparked which he held in Eric's direction. Not only to warn the wanna-be duke, but also to warn that saggy old dude. 

"I-I believe it is enough, yes." 

He couldn't decide what he should react to first, the bugs or the sparks of fire. The fact that there were two REAL demons standing in front of him, telling him he'd go to hell and had fallen for their temptation, was not only confusing, but also terrifying. 

He lived under gods protection, he thought, demons weren't supposed to be a threat to him. Crawling away from the bugs that made their way to him, he not even once took his eyes off of the ones keeping their eyes on him. 

"What are you going to do to me? God wouldn't allow this! The Almighty will protect me from you!" 

Eric yelped and shyed away from Hastur too. Even in his position he never felt safe around the duke, and he knew he could still hurt him real bad if he pleased. A demon shouldn't feel fear, but he couldn't help but be unnerved by his presence.

"She?"

Hastur pointed to the ceiling and gave the man an odd look before he broke off into laughter. 

"Come on, you're still hanging onto your belief? She won't help you! All you can do now is cower and pray to not fall to the deepest pits", he growled and moved in closer to the man who seemed to weaken and shrink down the closer he came. 

"Be overjoyed for tomorrow, it will be a feast." 

When he towered over the man who now helplessly pressed himself against the wall Hastur shot a look back to Eric, nodding for him to come over. 

"Your soul is ours." 

Pitch black blood dripped onto the man's thigh and sizzled dangerously as the Duke had already pulled back and left with the other demon following him. 

"Be sure to tell the media all about this!"

The old man didn‘t even have time, or the courage to answer before the demon‘s were out. He only stood there, back pressed helplessly against the wall as he had shrunk down further and further into a shivering and trembling mess. 

He would later throw on his clothes and run out to ask the guards outside if they had seen someone, but a lot of them had just straight out disappeared without a trace, and the rest didn‘t know a thing. So he would pray all night, and cry, and yell at the heavens and beg for forgiveness, mistaking the little joke that had been played on him as an actual proof of being forsaken by god.

Hastur though was only quite exhausted with the supposed duke behind him. They were on their way back to hell, the same manner as up, sinking through the floor of the subway to take the escalator down. Eric was twitchy and on edge, clutching his close as he nervously looked at the duke‘s back.

Only after about half of the ride down did he manage to tap the other‘s shoulder and open his mouth, contrited.

"I- I did what I was asked, w-why did you c…?“

It didn‘t even need the apalled stare of the other, Eric shut up the instant that Hastur turned around, or more like, turned his head enough to give him the deadliest of stares. Cold, disappointed, unamused.

But Eric was a duke now, he shouldn‘t -no- he couldn‘t let himself be put down by someone his rank. He had done absolutely nothing wrong, except for maybe not looking out for the blessed burns on the insides of his legs which hurt like hell with every step he took, or just the slightest movement really. It had edged him on when he had still been active with the old man, but now it was just torture.

"I- I want an explanation!“

He balled his hands to fists and sounded, and looked, more like a pouty brat, in Hastur‘s eyes at least, because that‘s what he saw him as. 

"Find your explanation with Lord Beelzebub, i‘m n o t your nanny“, he hissed before turning his head and walking out of the escalator as soon as it had reached it‘s goal. 

He had other things to worry about, things to worry about, report, and meddle with an old geezer‘s memories. That was bothersome enough, and half of it was Eric‘s fault too. 

"Hey…! Hey, this is unfair!“

It should be funny how it wasn‘t even Hastur himself that turned around when the ‚duke‘ called out to him, but it was his toad that moved around enough on his head to give him an empty stare and let it‘s tongue snap out before turning back to stare in the same direction as it‘s owner.

Eric jumped at the tongue, fidgety enough before he decided it dumb to try and discuss this with Hastur. He‘d talk with Beelzebub then, fix this up, tell them that he was at no fault. He had only just received this title. He wasn‘t about to lose it again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not incredibly proud of this chapter, so I will try to make the next one better

After only a few steps taken through the halls the flies around Hastur gathered to a cloud and whirled around before they revealed the short figure of Lord Beelzebub. “Well?”

Hastur stared down, then ahead. “A waste of my time. Why did you send him?”

“Would you have liked to go yourzzzelf?”

Hastur wouldn’t have wanted. He would have, indeed, if Ligur would still have been alive, but alone... He was depicted as one of the most gruesome and evil demon’s of hell, a dark mind, delighted by being evil, but he had lost the interest in it, the spark he had gotten when doing it. He didn’t care for a challenge, which the pope would have indeed been for him -he wouldn’t have thought he would have just needed to tug at his clothes to get him- he only did his work now.

As long as he hit the mark of evil deeds, he was fine.

“I take your zilenzze as a no”, they buzzed and looked disinterested to the walls. “Again, how did it go.”

Grumbling the duke pushed a demon, who had been in his way, aside before he lit a cigarette and answered. “I fixed it up. Latest tomorrow he’ll be starting to lose his mind.”

Beelzebub clasped their hands together and sighed. They were relieved that they didn’t need to explain to Satan how they had failed the job, just because the lords hadn’t wanted to lift a finger themselves. “Good. Find yourzzelf zzome work. I’m going to talk with that zzzad excuzze of a demon.”

Good for Eric. He wouldn’t need to search for the lord, the lord would instead search for him.  
The flies had already dispersed again and where buzzing off to different directions, the buzzing echoing from the grimy walls and filling the hallway with an obnoxiously loud noise. 

Hastur grimaced in uncomfort and pressed his palms to his ears until most of the cloud had vanished around the corner. Only a few little flies were left buzzing around a tad confused, and the usual chants and murmur of the demons had returned. A continuous grumble of voices, a yelling and mumbling, the usual noises paired with dripping water and hundreds of footsteps.

Hand shooting forward the duke plucked one of the flies out of the air and squeezed it between his fingertips. A bothersome, annoying little demon Beelzebub was. Too big a mouth and personality for that slim, small body. But something shot to his mind, so he let the stream of demons walk around him while he eyed the small insect, feeling the toad on his head frozen up.

“Hey.”

The fly buzzed pitifully before the voice of the lord shot through it once more. “What.”

The duke bit his lips as he scrambled his mind to get across what he wanted to without it sounding suspicious. Which he wouldn’t be able to. The question as such was suspicious. 

“...can the dead come back to life?”

“Excuzzze me?”, the lord asked a tad puzzled before they continued. “What are you talking about, Hazzztur? Not even god would juzzzt go around reanimating corpzzezzz, that’zz a ridiculous idea. We can interfere, but why zzzsshould we.”

Hastur didn’t answer, only furrowed his brows. Of course, he knew that. But if there wasn’t even a corpse left, what were you supposed to reanimate anyway. 

“Why are you azzking?”

“No reason”, he answered and moved his hand up to his toad. 

“Hazzztur-”, was the last thing the fly could buzz before it was snatched and swallowed by the toad. 

A dark shadow lay over the duke’s eyes while he shoved his hands back into his coat and started walking. Even if demons would have complained that he had stood in the middle of the way and now forcefully made his way through the masses -they didn’t, they weren’t as stupid as to insult a duke- he wouldn’t have heard it, his mind was focused somewhere else. No one came back to life, and now he was stuck with Eric. 

……………….

‘Pope caught having sexual interaction with child, claims Satan made him do it’

Hastur flipped the page of the newspapers, looking like a homeless how he sat on the bench, hair -or wig- dirty and grimy, wearing ragged, old clothes, the typical fingerless black gloves with the rainbow stripes around the fingers. Typical clothes of how you would imagine your typical homeless to be. 

“Horrible, aye? If even the pope does shit like that, what are we gonna believe in nowadays?”

Slowly the duke let the newspapers sink to his knees and let his eyes wander to a side glance towards the older man who had sat down next to him. He was smoking a cigar and was half bald, belly pressed into a tight shirt and wearing inexcusable shorts. 

“What?”

“The article, here”, the man pointed to it and traced the bright red letters with his eyes. “About the pope I mean. Pretty horrible stuff that.”

Hastur furrowed his brows and looked first at that stumpy little finger, then at the man striking the conversation with him.

The man was unfaced by the silence and the odd stare he was given and continued on: “I mean, if even the holy ones are now raping children, how are we even going to believe in heaven? Not that I ever did anyway. Heaven and hell, a ridiculous concept to try and scare us into obedience, forced onto us by the government. I’m telling you, it’s just hilarious, but I’m not getting fooled by that. Not me.”

He said it like not believing would make him a superior being. Hastur cringed at that. 

“I’ve got all I can wish for. A wife, a son and a job providing me with money. Though I guess it could always be more”, he laughed, then eyed the duke up and down. “I would say I’d help you get a job, kind as I am, but I don’t think they’d take you. Not like...that.”

Looking down himself Hastur gave that man a puzzled look. “What?”

By now the man only confused him. First talking about the incident, over which outrageous outbreak Hastur was indeed delighted, then talking about not believing, which was ridiculous telling a demon, then talking about himself and then about offering him a job but also not and giving him that odd look. Hastur always thought he looked human, human enough at least. 

“Well, come here, old man”, the corporate guy wrapped one arm around Hastur’s shoulder and pulled him closer. “You don’t look like you’ve got a job and money. In fact, you don’t look presentable at all. I guess that’s fine being homeless, but I won’t taint my image for you. But it’s your lucky day, I’ve been promoted yesterday, and i’ve now got some money to spare.”

The duke had been too stunned to pry that arm off himself, but the man now retreated it either way, stood up and threw the cigar to the ground, grinding his heel on it until the spark died out. Then he fumbled around in his pocket, took out a big, leather wallet and rummaged around inside it until he found two pounds. 

“Here, buy yourself a drink, to my promotion.”

The man held the pence out to Hastur who took them a little baffled, eyeing them weirdly. He didn’t have much a concept of money, so it was just two thin plates of metal to him, which was confusing why he was given them. 

The man was already walking off now, looking proud as anything and acting as if he was the greatest saint down on earth. Grinding his teeth Hastur stared at the metal and let out a groan in annoyance, metal starting to sizzle and bubble and melt in his hand as he heated it. What a pityful man, thinking neither hell nor heaven existed, acting like an idiot. He would go to hell anyway, but Hastur was tempted to play a little trick on him. 

He let the melted fluid drip off his hand and to the ground before standing up and following him. Why not help this man go to hell a little earlier. 

The man was still gleaming and beaming with confidence as he came to a black muscle car, stepping inside and swiping one hand over the polished, black innards. Must’ve been new that car. How about a little crash then? A few deaths, some injuries, a smashed in front. That would be fun. 

Hastur watched the car start up, watched it turn and move out of the parking space and onto the street. With a small hand motion the duke shook a few maggots out of his sleeve and, with a bit of miracling help, helped them into the car. There he let them onto the breaks and into the engine and forced the car to go faster, just a bit, the man was nearly going fast enough already. 

But he did block the breaks, broke them and made them unusable. That would be fun, he thought, and watched the car go towards a zebra crossing. With a ‘ping’ the traffic light went green and a few people walked onto the street. The man cursed and wanted to stop, but since the breaks didn’t work the car only roared and shot towards the crowd. 

The duke was already eagerly rubbing his palm against one another, chuckling quietly, when he saw something. His brain short circuited and, before he even knew it, he was sitting in the car next to the man, gripped the steering wheel and yanked it to the side. With a roaring engine, and screeching tires, the car sped towards a house, the man to Hastur’s side unbelieving, screaming, eyes fixed to the front, half aware, half unaware of the other pair of hands on the steering wheel. 

Shortly before the car crashed into the wall Hastur fled it and was standing on the street, watching the car crash against the wall from the corner of his eyes, smoke rising up and yelling. He would have cursed the car if he had been quite in his right mind, but since he wasn’t, he ignored his car sickness and the fear of it, and focused on the crowd.

In the middle of yelling people stood someone, someone who felt familiar enough to stir something inside of Hastur. The duke had the same tingly, familiar feeling like when he had seen that homeless man just the past day. 

He heard sirens in the distance, somewhere blurred to a pulp with the screams while he stared, slowly feeling himself being drawn in.

As if he hadn’t even realized what had happened, the man in the mass was pushed forward, started walking to the other side of the street and onto the sidewalk, gaze fixed to the ground. His coat was dirty and hair black and curly and short. His dark skin glistened in the sun, though crusted with dirt and he looked ragged and stinky and worn out. 

Before he even knew it himself the duke was walking fast, nearly running after the man, pushing his way through the masses that kept gathering and pooling to the scene, phones in hand, taking pictures and videos and talking and yelling to each other. Cursing Hastur pushed people to the side, ignored the insults, eyes fixed on the figure just past the crowd. 

That man wouldn’t get away from him this time, Hastur would make sure of that. Someone fell to the ground under his force and he was held back but a bit of hellfire and the person jumped away, screaming. Some people already backed away from him, making it easier to walk through them. When he was finally out he had a closer look on the man in front of him.

Before he even knew it and before he could register, he blurted out what came to his mind. “Ligur!”

The man perked up, stopped, then slowly turned. His eyes were strangely coloured and beneath the numbness they portrayed, something sparked and they widened.

“...Hastur?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...said, I wanted this chapter to be better, but somehow, it didn't turn out better. I got a kind of writer's block and still wanted to continue and finish off this story, which didn't really make it better. I hope you can still enjoy the two last chapters though

Without even knowing what had come over him, Hastur was running up to the smaller man and threw his arms around him in a rather awkward way, eyes wide open and mouth pressed to a thin line. Ligur didn’t quite know how to respond, and oddly pat his back, a nervous smile stretching his lips upwards. 

After the shortest of moments, that had still seemed like an uncomfortable eternity, Hastur retreated and looked at Ligur like he was going to evaporize into thin air any second. There was just something odd about the smaller one; something he couldn’t place his finger on. But it felt wrong, unusual, didn’t belong to the duke. 

“...how?”

Ligur shrugged and gave a confused look around. He kept his eyes averted from the other like that for a while, then started speaking. “Hey, Hastur?”

“Yeah?”

“...am I alive?” 

The taller duke shrugged honestly and moved to see what Ligur seemed to be so fixated on. Which was basically, nothing at all. A short, desperate snicker escaped Ligur and shook him, then looked down to his hands with the dirty fingernails. 

“Tell me one thing, Hastur”, pause. He watched his fingers twitch when he didn’t move them, then turned to meet eyes with the other, a crooked grin on his face. “Am I a demon?”

“Wha-” Hastur babbled around and struggled with the words for a moment before he gave Ligur a ridiculing look. “We’re demons, dukes of hell, evil, unforgiving, the fallen. However you wanna call us.”

“I know”, Ligur started, and stopped speaking almost immediately, lips pressed together and eyes unfocusing, as he kept them open longer than he should have. 

The taller duke looked confused, then grabbed Ligur’s sleeve. “About time we go back down. They’ve gotten a replacement for you, ridiculous one. Remember that dumb little brat demon? Right? Got that one. Let’s go.” 

“Hastur, I don’t think-”, he started, but was shut off when Hastur just dragged him along. He wasn’t listening to the smaller of the two, mind somewhere far, far off. He couldn’t ask any of the question burning in his mind and on his tongue, too tangled was his brain with the sole fact, that who had died before his eyes, was alive once more.

It was impossible, should be impossible, at least for someone killed by holy water, melted into a puddle of nothingness and eradicated from existence. Absolutely impossible.

And yet here he was.

“Hastur- listen to me-”

“We’re going back down, kill that bastard taking your place and it’s gonna go back to how it was”, Hastur laughed and pulled Ligur down the stairs to the subway, Ligur nearly tripping and falling but catching himself the last second. He was out of breath and gave off pained noises, which Hastur should have alarmed, but didn’t.

“Here.”

The taller duke grinned and made a wide handgesture towards the elevator downstairs. He felt absolutely mad, but worth it to feel that way. Chuckling quietly to himself he took the steps forward, water splashing under his feet until his feet were sucked in and he felt like cold water dragged him down into the abyss. 

“...Hastur!”

The taller one turned around once he was called out to and froze in his step. There was no Ligur behind him, not beside him, but above him. Standing firmly on the ground, no water rising around his feet, no sinking, no floating, just standing. Standing like every normal human being would.

With a strangled noise Hastur walked back upstairs, hands shooting forward to grab onto Ligur. 

“Down”, he mumbled with wide open eyes. “Down”, as he tried to drag Ligur underwater, but the floor rejected him, growled and wouldn’t let him through while Hastur sunk again.

“Let go of me!”

With a freaked out yell Ligur yanked Hastur’s hand away and stumbled backwards, panting for air and clutching his arm so it couldn’t be grabbed again. 

The taller duke shook his head and blinked several times to understand it, and still no light would click in his mind, give him an explanation to what had happened. Only his feet moved, ran back up and slowed when they closed back in on the smaller one.

“...why?”, he pointed behind himself where he had just sunk down.

“I don’t know, alright?! That’s why I asked you! It feels like a fucking dream to me, Hastur, like none of this shit ever happened. My memory is fuzzy and hazy and I can’t do anything!”

“I don’t...get it.”

Ligur chewed on the inside of his cheek and nodded. He didn’t understand anything either. 

“Let’s talk somewhere else. It’s better to not be caught by hell’s forces right now.”

Hastur couldn’t do much beside nod and show he understood. He was too baffled, stunned, any word actually you could use to describe would be too weak for it. He was out of it, so to say. 

“I’ve found a nice spot by the bridge, I’ve been sleeping there the past days.”

“Sleeping?”

“Crowley’s talked about it before. That thing where you close your eyes and drift away.”

“Why would you sleep?”

Ligur shrugged and clenched his hand, looking back to the other as if he was thinking about taking his hand, then decided against it and moved onwards. Out of the subway and through the streets, using as many backstreets as he could, before they finally arrived at his sleeping spot. A small, stone bridge, muddy and dirty underneath it.

Ligur coughed and groaned, then sat down on broken off stone from the bridge underneath it and stared into the mud. Hastur stood in front of him, eyed the mud and the piece of fabric and newspapers lying around, then eyed the murky water. Didn’t seem bad, but the smaller one didn’t seem as fond of it anymore. 

“The heck is all this?” Hastur waved his hand around deprecatingly.

Ligur shrugged and reached beside himself for the piece of fabric, could have once been a blanket, and wrapped it around himself, shivering a little. 

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t know, it’s warmer that way.”

“Cold is nice.”

“I’ve been feeling sick the past days.”

“Sick?”, Hastur raised an eyebrow and tilted his head to the side. 

Ligur only nodded as response, before he started explaining. “You know, what we like to give humans. Stomach aches, nausea, cold, stiff muscles, stuff like that.”

“Then miracle it away.”

Ligur stared now, blankly ahead, then slowly shook his head. “...I tried.”

“What’s that supposed to mean: You tried?”

“Listen, Hastur”, came a more annoyed response and the smaller one glared at him. “I don’t get any of this either, so stop bothering me with that ridiculous tone of yours.”

Satisfied once he saw the other’s expression changing Ligur sighed and wrapped the blanket closer around himself. “Why did you even call out to me?”

Hastur shrugged, looked to the side. “I don’t know.”

“Hah, and I’m supposed to believe that? Calling out to me for no reason?”

“Shut up, alright?”, Hastur hissed back and crossed his hands in front of his chest. “What even is this all about?”

This all. An easy way to say: How in the hell are you alive, why could you not return to hell, what is all that nonsense you’re spouting, I ‘missed’ you, am I dreaming?

The weird mocking easiness between the two had all but disappeared now, and both of them were back to seriousness. Ligur stared into the mud, Hastur into the water, both waiting for words to come to their minds.

“...I woke up in Crowley’s flat a few days ago. I didn’t know what was going on. Everything seemed fuzzy and when I tried to remember the most recent happenings, my head would hurt and flash to white. But it’s not like I don’t know what, or who I am”, he started, kneading his hands without once looking up. Then his lips were twisted into a grin. “I’m Ligur, one of hell’s dukes, former angel, fallen centuries ago. I remembered going after Crowley because he had fucked up the antichrist, but from then on it was blank.”

“...because you died.”

“Yeah, I remembered that later as well. Holy water, wasn’t it?”

Hastur nodded, Ligur grimaced. “Extremely painful that stuff.”

Continuing on he lifted his gaze towards Hastur, watched him look at the water as if he could see something in the green slug. 

“You know, I’ve been trying to return to hell, to do my duties, several times, every day. It just...wouldn’t work”, he grinned, eyes unfocusing until everything around him looked like green slug. “That’s why I thought it was all fake memories in my head. I thought I might have run away from a mental clinic. Not far off when you’re thinking you can kill someone with one stare, and next thing you know is, the person only gives you an odd stare back, walks off, and survives.”

“That’s impossible.”

“...yeah, I know.”

Another pause of silence, then Hastur managed to finally lay eyes on the other again, watched his orange, blank eyes and how he stopped shivering when his mind was so far elsewhere.

“...did we win the war?”

“We didn’t.”

“How are you still alive then?”

“No one won the war. Crowley and an angel ran away with the antichrist who reverted the world back to normal.”

“Ah”, Ligur answered, and mumbled to himself that he had ‘reverted the world back to normal’. Somehow that stuck in his mind, and he couldn’t get it out. Reverted the world back to normal...he had died...he had lost most of his demonic self...somehow his mind didn’t seem to wrap itself around it.

“Try using a miracle.”

“I already told you I can’t”, Ligur started off but Hastur shot him down with a look and shook his head. “Use it.”

A little confused Ligur did his best to concentrate on his finger, bring up a small flame of hellfire, but only the tip of his finger felt a little warm. No flame spurted forward, no scorching hot but cold heat, no evil feeling of a dirty fire.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying a miracle, jackass”, Ligur snapped back and glared at him, though his eyes widened when Hastur’s expression changed to something more scared. 

“Get up.”

Ligur did, watched as the taller duke closed in and started walking around him, tugging at his clothes and sniffing him. When he repeatedly grabbed for Ligur’s hair, running one hand through it as if that would reveal his chameleon, Ligur snapped and yanked Hastur’s hand away. “Just stop already.”

Nodding the taller one retreated slowly and eyed him up and down, obviously trying to process something that didn’t fit in his mind.

“What?”, Ligur snapped a little wary. “What’s that look supposed to mean?”

“...” 

Hastur’s eyes darkened, brain piecing together what information he had just gotten. That odd feeling, that strange, odd feeling of something missing. He was sure he knew what it was, but...why?

“What is it, Hastur?! Talk already!” 

Before he could bring out the words he chewed on his lip, slowly dragging his teeth over it, trying to not have to say it. 

“...I can’t feel anything demonic-”

A short moment of silence, then Ligur started laughing. If out of desperation over the confirmation to the answer he had had in his mind for a while, or because it sounded stupid, Hastur couldn’t tell, his brain rattled further as he stepped in, grabbed Ligur firmly by his shoulders and shook him. “This isn’t fucking funny! How are you gonna go back to hell now?”, he half screeched. 

“I’m not”, Ligur answered with a numb grin, at which Hastur slapped him hard. Puzzled the ex-duke reached one hand up to his cheek, then looked upwards into Hastur’s eyes, which spoke of desperation.

“I haven’t waited all of those days after the armageddon for ANY kind of miracle, just for it to...”, he hawed before he continued. “For it to not work when it finally happens!”

In his outbreak Hastur’s toad croaked pitifully under the wig and he let out a frustrated yell, pacing away from Ligur to kick mud into the water. 

“I didn’t fucking wait and ask around and search just for it to not-! There must be something, anything! Anything at all! There has to be a catch to it!-”

He stopped when he heard Ligur’s stomach rumbling and turned his head towards him. Ligur looked a bit embarrassed and pinched his stomach as if that would calm him, looking off to the side.

“...where do you get food?”

“Down the street.”

“Get some.”

Ligur laughed and shook his head. “You forget the money aspect. I can’t miracle any.”

Grumbling Hastur snapped, and a bundle of notes appeared in Ligur’s hand. “Get some”, he grumbled and walked over until he towered over the cowering ex-duke. Ligur eyed the bundle a little strangely and gave a mocking grin up to the other. “Pity? We’re demons, Hastur. Demons don’t trust each other.”

“Demon and...”, he swallowed before saying it. “Ex-demon, doesn’t apply.”

Nodding Ligur pushed himself off the ground and walked off. He didn’t deny a little, nice tingle underneath his cautiousness and stared at the bundle before he shoved them deep into his coat pocket. “You following?”, he asked and looked back to Hastur who stared at the blanket he had left behind.

“Yeah, sure”, came the response and Hastur hurried after him. They looked like a couple of homeless as they walked down the street, ragged boots muddy and both of them reeking, wearing clothes that could have been from the last century. 

Down the street was a bakery, the employee already grimaced seeing them walk towards the shop. “I won’t give you anything for free, old man. I need money”, he snapped when he saw Ligur, eyeing Hastur like he was some kind of demon, which he, well, indeed was, but the employee didn’t know that, just felt uneasy. 

The duke growled at the response and walked in close to the counter. “Listen, boy. Give us food and shut your trap if you don’t feel like losing it.” 

“E-excuse me?”, the employee started off but was stopped when Ligur slammed a bunch of notes onto the counter. “Give me food”, the ex-duke growled with a dangerous tingle in his eyes.

The employee didn’t wish to ask where he had gotten that money from, when the past days he hadn’t had anything, had walked in once and tried to order him to give him food, until he had bee told about the money aspect. He had looked like he had had to remember that you needed money to buy things. So the employee shot a look over to Hastur, grabbed the money and looked through it, then turned to Ligur. “What can I get you?”

“Bread, bread rolls and that”, he pointed to the fruit cake. The employee nodded a bit overwhelmed, counted the money and packed two large breads, several bread rolls and two slices of cake, put it neatly into four paper bags and then handed it over. Wordlessly the two men took them and walked out. The employee didn’t bother mentioning that they still got change back. Their least worry had seemed to be money, though they looked like it should be their biggest. 

Outside Ligur greedily reached into the paper bag with the bread rolls and stuffed his face, groaning in a mixture of pain and delight when he finally could fill his stomach up. Hastur watched him, then opened one of the bread bags and reached inside it, breaking off a piece, sniffing it and grimacing before shoving it into his mouth. He had never eaten before, no supernatural being needed to after all. 

It didn’t taste...bad? It was just...bland. He wondered how the one beside him could wolf it down like that, that seemed a waste of time to the taller, but he also couldn’t feel hunger, so he couldn’t feel with Ligur much. 

“And now what”, Hastur started and watched Ligur close the bag again, then concentrate on ripping open the plastic tray with the cakes on it and take one of the slices, offering the other to Hastur. “I’m gonna try this thing”, Ligur started and took a huge bite.

Gelatine spilled and fruit juices leaked down Ligur’s mouth, but he only hummed delighted and took another bite, nudging Hastur with the tray. The taller one gave it an odd look, grabbed it, cursed when it dirtied his gloves and took a bite. Well, he had to admit, that wasn’t half bad, though not exactly his style either. But at least it wasn’t bland, like the other thing he had eaten. 

Quietly the two finished their food, then Ligur greedily sucked his fingers and straightened his clothes, face turning back to his usual, rather expressionless one. From one moment to the other his attitude had changed and he stared ahead while he walked.

“You should go back to hell now. You have a job, don’t you?”

The duke grumbled and shook his head. “I ain’t gonna.”

“You have to.”

“Well, I won’t”, Hastur snapped and pushed someone aside who was looking at their phone and didn’t move out of their way. “They’ve gotten that ridiculous Eric as your duke replacement. I already had to clean up after him, had to babysit him. Imagine how nice that is.” 

“As nice as shoving a toilet brush down your throat?”

“...what in Satan’s name?”

Ligur shrugged and pointed to a newspaper stand. “Someone did that.”

Hastur looked confused and frowned. That wasn’t the good old days. Such an idiot would surely go down to hell, but what an unclassy way to fall. Hastur preferred doing it dramatically, with style, make them go to hell the good old-fashioned way. The old times had been good, the new times just sucked. He snapped at another one who wouldn’t go out of their way and yelled some insults after him. 

“Really though, you have responsibilities. There is no reason to abandon them.”

“There is”, Hastur shrugged and watched a car leave an oil trail on the busy street. 

“What would that be?”, Ligur asked and frowned, which Hastur evaded by asking another question. “What are you going to do now?”

The ex-duke shrugged and furrowed his brows when his question was left unanswered. “Listen, I’m going to rot and die up here, then i’m going to fall to hell again, it doesn’t matter to me, but you’re the most important one down there right now, especially with that little brat in…my position..”

“You won’t rot and die, i’ll let death and rot rot beforehand”, Hastur hissed and shoved one hand into the paper bag to break off another piece of bread and shove it in his mouth. 

“What”, Ligur mocked now, watching him eat in irritation. “Caught feelings a demon shouldn’t have?”

“Caught a mouth a human shouldn’t have?”, Hastur snapped back with a glare, the word ‘human’ tasting foul on his tongue when used to refer to Ligur. The smaller one flinched too at the word, but tried to not let it show. 

“We’ve been partners down in hell, trust or not. Remember that tv show?”

“The old one with the cops?”

“Yeah, that one.” Hastur grimaced as he used the comparison. He really shouldn’t say it, should just leave and go back to hell and listen to his mind, that told him, that he was going crazy and this was all an imagination. “That show stopped ‘cuz one of the actors died, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, see? Isn’t working with one”, the duke grumbled a bit quieter and shoved more bread into his mouth. Ligur looked a bit puzzled, then looked off, not showing what was on his mind. “Got it.”

They walked down the street, both neither saying nor showing what was going on inside their heads, both denying the nice little tingle and relief they felt the whole time when being beside the other. They were partners, that was one thing none denied, but everything further, was a lie to them. 

“So, how do humans live?”

The smaller one shrugged and shifted the bags around in his hands. “I don’t know.”

“Great.”


	5. Chapter 5

Afterstory:

A few weeks after, Hastur had indeed decided to stay up on earth. He hadn’t really...explained it to Ligur. Had been muttering some excuses and things that wouldn’t make sense, and had bought tickets to America. A bit of miracling here and there, and no one would mention the two odd men suddenly living in their neighbourhood. 

Ligur and Hastur would just...live beside each other. They had bought a book and read several entries on the world wide web about being human and had started living by those, rather unrealistic, standards. They showered, and bought food, and Hastur had started cooking, acted like they had a job, complained about the ruckus outside, cared for their garden, bought a gun, and so on, and so on. They had also read articles about being an American, and had found joy in the idea of being allowed to carry a gun. 

When Ligur had asked why America, Hastur had only shrugged and mentioned, that they needed to evade hell’s observations, and London was too easy to search. And he had taken a liking to America for long now. The gun’s, the violence, the bribery, stupid suing laws, the nationalism, the military. It was a joy, to say the least. 

When he heard the door opening, Hastur turned around and stopped stirring the pot with the load of chunky vegetables and meat in it. 

Ligur stood in the door, took off his shoes and coat and revealed the black, nice business suit, and a breeze that engulfed Hastur in a pricey smelling cologne’s scent for the blink of an eye. The ex-duke placed the black leather bag aside and sighed content before letting his orange eyes wander towards the taller.

“What’s for food?”

“I dunno, stew”, Hastur replied and blew out a cloud of smoke. He always smoked inside; it didn’t tarnish the wallpapers or keep a scent, since Hastur didn’t know it would. They didn’t have electricity either or clean water, since they didn’t know that they needed it. Their things would work either way. 

“How was it?”, the duke asked while he turned around to stir once more, then stare at the cook book lying next to him, squinting his eyes so he could read better. 

Ligur tugged at his tie and wrapped it around his wrist, before he slid it off and put the, perfectly rolled up, tie on the table. “A good idea of yours.”

Stalking next to Hastur he opened a cupboard and took out two plates and cutlery, placing it perfectly onto the table before he sat down, grabbed spoon and fork, and watched Hastur’s back. There was just something nice to it, something eerily calming. 

“I’m impressed by the amount of work human’s have every day at the office. I wonder how most of them haven’t collapsed. A lot of them look like they’ve not seen sleep in weeks, others are, rather, slimy. It’s a lot like hell, in a lot of ways.” 

He spun the spoon around in his hand and watched the reflection, pulling his hand back once Hastur walked over with the steaming pot in hand. The demon placed it down and grabbed a ladle to divide the food onto the two plates. Sitting down himself he blew on his food to cool it just enough, he hadn’t done this the first times eating, or drinking, hot stuff, and had burnt his tongue badly enough, that he’d never forget again. He did the same for Ligur, then pushed the plate over to him. Ligur nodded appreciatively, then dug in. 

“Do you have as much?”

The smaller one chuckled and shook his head. “No. I get payed for barely nothing, it seems. Though, of course, it’s only been the first day as corporate executive. But I have to say, it seems to me a nice idea, to exploit my employees a little. It’s really a lot like being a duke, just...better.”

“Better?”, Hastur asked a little unbelieving, at which Ligur nodded. 

“Hell is stuck up, though I tend more to the old days of temptation and devilship myself, but humans are just so...creative. If I tread on someone, then hell wouldn’t tread on them too, only if it was their job. But humans? They’d do the same, only worse, just to get some recognition.”

Ligur had actually started working for exactly that. He wasn’t a demon anymore, much less a duke, and he missed it. He couldn’t just go on a killing spree either. That was fun, but if he died, he died, and hell would surely come to know about the two of them then. And neither wanted that. Ligur was sure that if they found out about him, he’d die. And if they’d know about why Hastur didn’t return to hell, he’d die for sure too. So they needed to keep quiet, and Ligur admitted, that what he had learned from corporate executives and higher ups in companies was, that it was way more fun to mentally tear someone to the ground, than physically. Very much way more fun even. 

“Hm”, Hastur just nodded and wolfed his food down a tad too messily. The vegetables were only half cooked and crunched when he bit down on them. Ligur didn’t seem to mind, Hastur did though and silently muttered curses under his breath. He didn’t think he’d ever get the hang of cooking. 

When the doorbell rang he stood up to get the door and glared at the young postman standing before him. 

“Delivery for a Mister...La Vista?” 

Hastur nodded and eyed him confused. He had bought something online, because humans did that, and had thought it would just appear on his doorstep. Now there stood this pipsqueak in the lemon coloured work suit and held a small package in one hand, a piece of paper in his other.

“Please sign here, Sir.”

He held the paper out to Hastur and a pen. The demon eyed it weirdly, then started writing. The paper burnt and glistened with every line and he only noticed when the pipsqueek squeaked pitifully and yanked the paper away. 

“I-I’m sorry, sir! It must be the heat!”, he stuttered and mumbled an ‘excuse me’, watching the paper crackle and burn on the ground before he turned around to get a new one. That he held out to Hastur too and watched him write a little nervous. This time the duke didn’t write his demon name, but instead signed with Hastur La Vista and gave the pen back. 

The young man nodded and handed over the package, then turned around on the spot and hurried back to his van. Hastur watched him drive off, then eyed the package, ripped it open and threw the cardboard box outside. He eyed the movie in his hand a bit strange. Bee movie. Had been a recommended classic on the internet. To be human, meant to watch this movie. So he had bought it.

“Who was it?”

“Postman”, Hastur grumbled and sat back down. 

“So late? It’s nearly, six.”

“Apparently”, the demon shrugged and looked at Ligur’s plate. Since he seemed finished, the duke snapped his fingers and the plates and cutlery disappeared into a dishwasher. He didn’t set it on, he thought putting it in the dishwasher alone made it clean, so it was. 

“...that movie looks strange. You sure this is a human classic?”, Ligur asked with a frown, taking the DVD box out of Hastur’s hands and eyeing it.

Hastur flicked his tongue and ripped the wig off his head, let his toad breathe a bit. “Was recommended.”

Humans watched movies, humans enjoyed theater and drama, humans watched Tv shows and had favourite movies and characters and actors. So Ligur and Hastur would need to try it too. To be...human, since they now lived as humans. Well, Ligur did more, but he also was...well, human, in a way. There was a rest bit of demonicness in him, but the big part was...powerless. 

So they sat down in the living room with the weirdly coloured sofa and put on the movie. The screen flickered, then weird music played and this giant bee appeared on screen. The longer they watched, the more Ligur furrowed his brows and Hastur’s mouth opened and eyes widened while he started clenching his fingers together. 

When the credits played Hastur shut off the Tv and shook his head. “Never. Again.”

Ligur agreed. “Humans are strange.”

“If this is a classic, I will eat a bee.”

“Don’t eat a bee, don’t be like her.”

“Bees, bees everywhere”, Hastur mumbled and shook his head. He was dead sure they had been fooled. If that was a classic, well, then Bach and Liszt and Mozart and all those didn’t count anymore. 

“We will not speak of this again”, Ligur said, shaking his head and pressing his eyes shut to get some unsettling images out of his head.

“Hm.”

Hastur stood op, took the Dvd, and yeeted it out the window. He stared out after it, toad croaking unsettled and shifting around a bit restless.

That way the two of them just stared blankly ahead of themselves, processing the movie, until Ligur finally found the words to something he had been thinking to ask for the past weeks. 

“Hastur?”

“Yeah?”

The taller one turned around and pet his toad to calm it, a fly buzzing in his hand, until the toad snatched it. 

“What exactly are we?”

Tilting his head to the side the taller looked confused at the question and shrugged. “Traitors.”

“No, not what we are to hell. What are we.” Ligur pointed first to Hastur, then to himself. 

“Demons? Humans? Existences?”, the duke asked a bit helpless, tilting his head to the other side.

Ligur sighed and shook his head. 

“We agreed that we’re partners?”

Hastur nodded and closed the window behind himself before walking over to sit back on the couch. “Somewhat. Why?”

“Because people seem to think we’re a couple.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Overheard it. Some woman in the neighbourhood spouted to her husband that we’re partners as in couple.”

“Does partner mean couple?”

“Apparently.”

Hastur sighed and looked at the Tv, then searched his pockets for his phone, pulled it out, and googled. 

“What are you looking up?”

“How couples work.”

“Why?”, Ligur snorted, but shut up when he saw the serious look on Hastur’s face. 

“’Cuz we gotta be human.”

“We could just say friends.”

The two of them both cringed at that word, grimaced and agreed on no. And neither of them had a problem with the word of couple, or partner. None of the two opposed it. So Hastur kept googling until he found couple tips, and raised his eyebrows further the longer he read the list. There were more than a few words he’d never heard before, and he wondered if he went to the wrong site -which he quite indeed had.

“Turn”, Hastur said and Ligur did, looking a bit confused, when Hastur pressed an awkward, quick kiss to his cheek. When he turned back the demon wiped his lips a bit confused, then looked at his hands. 

“Some other day”, he said absent mindedly and stood up to walk out. “I’ll buy a ring tomorrow.”

“A ring? Why?”

“It says here you need one”, Hastur answered and walked out, phone left on the sofa. 

Ligur looked a bit confused, grabbed the phone and read through the list himself. When he came to the ring part, he raised and eyebrow and decided to stay quiet about it. 

While the two did find some kind of attraction to each other, they were too awkward to accept any kind of emotions towards someone, or anything at all. So long as it stayed at, you need it to be human, it worked out.


End file.
